


Pulse

by ChromeHoplite



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: 21 year old Ciel, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Begging, Blow Jobs, Ciel is blind from one eye, Flirting, Kissing, M/M, Memories, Murder, Mystery, Post-Canon, Reincarnation, Revenge, SebaCiel - Freeform, Size Difference, Teasing, Tentacle Sex, Ultimatums, i guess this is going to get a few more chapters, museum sex, snark and stuff, sorrynotsorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-13
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:41:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21758485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChromeHoplite/pseuds/ChromeHoplite
Summary: At 21, Ciel Phantomhive journeys from his home in Greece to the British Museum in London with the intention of apprehending a thief who made off with a rare artifact some 120 years ago.He is met by several familiar faces he can't seem to place, but none so infuriatingly intimate as that of a dark-haired stranger's.Swept by nostalgia and fleeting memories that seem to belong to another person, Ciel is forced to make peace with a past that might be better forgotten.(Not gonna lie: This entire fic was written with the  purpose of museum-smut)
Relationships: Sebastian Michaelis/Ciel Phantomhive
Comments: 43
Kudos: 304





	1. - one -

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CimmerianShade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CimmerianShade/gifts).



> "Tu n’es plus là où tu étais, mais tu es partout là où je suis." - Victor Hugo  
> Music: [Interlude by London Grammar](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gB4iD6H7XI)

The wheels of Ciel's suitcase rolled silently along the smooth tiled surface of Heathrow’s fifth terminal. He cut through the crowd effortlessly, zigzagging between families, businessmen and hippie backpackers towards the trains that would lead him to London. It was particularly busy for a mid-December Friday and he half wondered if everyone leaving the international gates were also on their way to the British Museum. 

Unlikely. 

He himself had only come across the cryptic note by accident. A copy of it had been left on his eccentric history teacher's desk next to a book entitled _‘Enigmatic London: A Compendium of the Unexplained’_. Upon discovering his student nosing about, Mister Ross promptly disciplined Ciel by having him write a dissertation elaborating on the possible whereabouts of the famous artifact that had been stolen from the British Museum in 1899. 

At first, Ciel had been annoyed, but his discontent soon gave way to intrigue and then to obsession. From the age of fifteen onward, all Ciel could think and dream about was that damned note. He ransacked every academic library in Greece in search of answers, wrote to North American scholars and pursued a degree in Art History at the University of Athens to simply network and schmooze his way into covert circles. Every path that he took invariably led to a dead-end; to the eleven words originally scrawled in high calligraphy onto a yellowed piece of parchment: _I shall return the totem in one hundred and twenty years._

Over the years, Ciel failed to keep count of the number of times he had unfolded and refolded the photocopied note; he surmised it must be somewhere in the ballpark of a quarter million. He'd slept with it, ate breakfast with it, journeyed to school by transit with it. He'd memorized it so completely, from the right slanting of the taller letters, the exaggerated curvature of the two s's and the extra pressure the writer had exerted when dotting the i. Whatever quill was used had been sharp; the words looked etched into the paper rather than having been written. To this day, experts were puzzled by the nature of the ink. 

Now that he had transferred to the Central tube line, he took it out again. The closer he got to his destination, the heavier it weighed in his hands, so that by the time he came to the surface he might as well have been hauling the ten volumes that made up _Cyrus the Great_. 

Trying to relieve the fatigue that such a burden bore, Ciel hunched over, hands on knees, catching his breath. Exhaling produced a whistled wheezing sound that he’d never experienced before; it tickled his throat and triggered a coughing fit that drained his energy. He was suddenly aware of being exhausted, but his flight had not been a long one; only two hours from Athens International where his parents had dropped him off. 

_"Mind you don't talk to strangers, Ciel. Not everyone you meet is a decent person," his mother had advised._

_"Definitely talk to strangers. It won't hurt you to come out of your shell a little bit," his father countered, and upon shaking his son's hand, slipped one hundred pounds into it without his wife being any the wiser. Ciel's left eye rounded in surprise; the sum was lofty considering Vincent's humble position as a civil servant._

The money seemed to burn in his pocket as the note clutched in his hand. Still, it would have been mightily ungrateful of him not to enjoy the gift, and he’d had every intention of doing so by treating himself to a breakfast scone at the Tea and Tattle, but once the London air had gotten into his lungs, something came over him. 

The sensation was heady, yet sobering. For as long as he could remember, London had been familiar to him, even through pictures and film. It should, therefore, be no surprise that those feelings would have intensified now that he was here in the flesh. Nevertheless, he held firm to the iron bar of an adjacent fence to support himself. His eyes shut of their own accord, letting the lovely accents of passersby wash over him, their conversations shifting from football matches and Brexit to the maiden voyage of the RMS Oceanic and the goings-on of the Mahdist War. Even the small cars driving up the narrow streets became a cantering clip-clop of hooves accompanied by the rusty squeak of oversized carriage wheels. 

"Mate, are you okay?" 

"Huh?" Ciel opened his eyes again. On his right, a stylish Indian boy with long, tied back hair had him by the elbow, not ungentlemanly-like. 

"I asked if you were alright? You look peeky." 

"I'm fine. Thanks," Ciel replied, making sure he still had his note and his small suitcase. 

"You're not from around here -- your accent, where's it from?" The boy asked, releasing Ciel when he seemed certain he would not fall. 

Ciel didn't understand the amused lilt of the stranger's tone; London _was_ an international city, people came here from all over the world. The Indian boy must hear them on a daily basis, especially here at the heart of Bloomsbury. 

"Athens," Ciel said self-consciously. His voice suddenly didn't feel like his own. Though perfectly bilingual, his English dialect didn't seem to emphasize the right sounds. He resolved to say as little as possible. 

"I love Greece! You should check out the Troy exhibit at the Museum, it's wonderful! Agni and I went last week."

Ciel hummed in response, looking a bit past the stranger to see if he could make out his airbnb. 

"But if you're from Greece, you must be sick of hearing about Troy. Maybe you'd like the Quetzalcóatl exhibit instead. It's South American. Kinda like Greek mythology with the trials the plumed serpent has to undergo... I could take you if you'd like. I'm Soma by the way." He extended his hand enthusiastically. 

"Astre," Ciel lied by way of introduction. It was the first name that came to his mind; it wasn't very Greek, but then again, neither was Ciel. Soma was nice enough, but lying about his identity had seemed the natural thing to do. "It's very kind of you, but I'm only here for the weekend and I have some important errands to attend to. I'm afraid I don't have much time for sightseeing." 

"Astre? You don't look like an Astre," Soma barked a laugh, clapping him on the arm with his many ringed fingers. "At least let me help you find your place. You look... overwhelmed. London has a way of doing that."

Ciel considered him. True, Soma was taller, bigger, but nothing about him screamed thug. He seemed elegantly refined, the books under his arm looked academic rather than frivolous paperbacks or gossip rags one buys at a pharmacy. This was what swayed him (that, and the fact that he was shit with directions).

"Very well. I'm looking for 25 Coptic Street."

Soma looked like a child on Christmas morning. "Oh, that's this way! Right by the museum," he tugged Ciel along by the strap of his messenger bag, grinning broadly. How odd that someone would derive so much pleasure from something so trivial. 

Ciel didn't have to worry about filling awkward silences on their walk. Soma never stopped talking, raving about the city: "Make sure you see the London Eye at night. And don't bother with the Doctor Who store if you're into that-- it's not much to write home about. But the aquarium is. You still like aquariums don't you?" 

Ciel nodded or shook his head as was required, then Soma stopped so abruptly that he ran into the back of him and nearly fell on his arse.

"Whoa, Astre. That eye patch giving you depth perception issues?" He joked. "Is it just an aesthetic thing? It makes you look super cute."

Ciel glowered. _Cute_. He was twenty-one. He was not cute. Kittens were cute (albeit deathtraps). Plushies were cute. He was... well maybe not _handsome_ in the way manly men were handsome... he was small, with delicate features, but attractive all the same. 

"I'm blind from this eye," he deadpanned pointing to the patch. "I was born with polycoria." 

Soma’s face gave nothing away. No disgusts. No surprise. He was a blank slate. _Tabula rasa._

“It means I have two pupils in one eye.” 

“Ooooh…” Soma winced, but in sympathy, then reached into his own pocket and withdrew a pen. Without Ciel's consent, he wrote his phone number on the back of the smaller man's hand. "If you change your mind, and you want to see that exhibit, let me know. Good luck with what you're looking for." And then he left, with a slight spring in his step. 

"But I didn't tell you I was looking for anything," Ciel muttered more to himself than anyone else. He was about to take out his phone to plot his route to the airbnb, but noticed the large lion statues on the other side of the street. "That must be the back entrance to the museum," he mused, turning left and discovering he stood before his weekend flat. 

He wasted no time punching in the code he'd been given in advance to possess the apartment keys and went inside. He lay his clothes out and washed up. In the shower, he let the water splash onto his face in an attempt to shake off his unexplained fatigue. It dawned on him only then that he’d been unconsciously looking forward to rain upon his arrival. Surely, the London experience wouldn't be complete without the shivers that came with a good soaking. 

With that in mind, he omitted his umbrella from his messenger bag before getting dressed in his best college attire: faded ripped jeans, muted button-down shirt and a grey Herringbone jacket to feign elegance. He hitched his bag over his slender shoulder, feeling his ass to make sure he had both the note and his wallet and locked the door behind himself. 

The fact that Ciel wouldn’t need to pay admission to get into the prestigious museum was something he’d anticipated but still couldn’t believe. He wondered how anyone from London could ever claim to be bored when they had a wealth of culture and art and history at their fingertips. 

Ciel checked his pocket watch, a gift passed down to him on his mother’s side. Too excited (and maybe a little apprehensive) to miss the doors opening to the British Museum, he forewent his original plan of stopping at the tea shop and settled instead for the fare offered at the Court Cafe in the museum’s core. 

An unkempt barista read an outdated magazine, chewing her bubblegum in a manner that would have been impolite just about anywhere. With her arms crossed over her chest, she looked mildly uncomfortable amidst the cups and glasses and myriad of kitchenware. There was a gruffness about her as if she would have preferred to be bartending instead. She saw Ciel approach and the corner of her mouth twitched in an affable half-smile. 

"What'cha want?" she greeted him with a thick American drawl. 

"Mmm..." Ciel stalled, taken aback by her deep voice. Had it been any lower, he swore he would have recognized it. He was tempted to have her say random lines that came to his mind to test his hypothesis. 

"Well? Come on kid, this isn't Gordon Ramsey's restaurant, you'll be disappointed no matter what you order." 

"Kid?" Ciel asked. It was as though the barista had read his thoughts. If there’d been one word he would have wished she would parrot, it was _kid_. Mind you, he wasn’t exactly aware of it until she’d said it. 

"Yeah. Kid. Yanno... Brat... Cuz you're small, see?" she blew a bubble and bit into it. Some of it burst on her upper lip and she ignored it. He wasn’t going to say anything; she was kind of intimidating, stood quite a bit taller than he did, and she was built like she worked out. Her stance, despite her attitude, was formal: hands behind her back, legs apart. 

"Rude. Is that any way to speak to your patrons?" he argued, the words having come out against his own volition. 

She winked and gave a facetious little bow. "I'm sorry, _Sir_. So what'll it be?" 

Ciel placed his order, feeling vindicated that he'd accurately pegged her discomfort in the small kitchen. She banged a lot of stuff unnecessarily, swearing loudly under her breath as she did and finally produced his order. 

It wasn't terrible; the Earl Grey might have steeped a little too long for his picky taste, and the lemon poppyseed muffin was a might too bland, but both helped ground him. 

If London outdoors had hit him like an anvil over the head, the interior of the museum was a nuclear warhead aimed straight at him. His feet knew exactly where to go without so much as relying on his brain. The hours he poured over blueprints and maps were forgotten as he moved through the great hall into the Living and Dying Wellcome Trust Gallery. It was cavernous. He had somehow always known it would be, knew he would feel insignificant beside the Easter Island bust and the Pharmacopoeia; not because of their sheer size or their antiquity, but because of their relevance. Who was he, in the grand scheme of things, except for some poor college kid looking for answers that experts much better suited to the task than himself hadn't even cracked? 

There had been no date on the note. No indication of the time when the totem would be returned. And yet, Ciel felt in his heart that the day in question would be December fourteenth: the day of his twenty-first birthday. 

And if he was honest, it was not the return of said object that fascinated him, but rather the thief. How did one plunder a [fifteen-foot totem monument](https://www.flickr.com/photos/champnet/5532758715/), sight unseen? Why hadn’t there been markings on the floor where it had been dragged? Why hadn’t there been witnesses? And what motive could anyone have had in 1899 to want to steal such a thing? What kind of connections would such a person need to get away with such a crime? 

"What if it wasn't a person?" he heard whispered to his right. The voice made the small hairs in his ears stand, causing a chain reaction of goosebumps from head to toe. He turned on the spot, getting lightheaded in the process. Nobody was close enough for their voice to have carried the way it did. 

How much opium was in these poppy seeds? He heard some people actually tested positive for it when forced to undergo drug screening. When he finally convinced himself that it was simply nerves acting up, he found a bench near the empty north-west end of the room. From his research, he gathered that this was where the Vancouver totem was originally stationed before its disappearance. 

He finished his muffin and retrieved his copy of _'Enigmatic London'_ from his bag, opening it on his lap to the well-worn dog eared page. The fifteen-foot structure had been admired not only for its craftsmanship; the carving of raccoon, eagle and raven were breathtaking to say the least. With their traces of red and blue coloring, it had doubled as decoration and entrance-- to where, nobody really knew. 

He sipped from his tea and studied those in his presence, wondering if he'd be able to recognize the thief if he were among the museum-goers. A short, elderly gentleman sat by the door, occasionally warning patrons not to touch the art. His uniform was immaculate, evidence of taking great pride in his work. He too sipped tea, taking the time to smell it before every mouthful. His moustache wiggled every time he did, and Ciel had a hard time taking his eyes off of the funny man. 

An hour later, Ciel sat cross-legged against the wall, his back achy from having sat so long without proper support. He had a better view of everyone coming and going this way. 

Children arrived, a whole group of them, wearing fluorescent green vests, all holding onto a bright orange rope. They were led by a redhead with thick spectacles -- their teacher no doubt. Her Scottish accent carried throughout the space with ease and drew the attention of many disgruntled individuals having sought the museum as a place of quiet refuge. 

"Miss, what's this?" A snotty boy holding her hand asked, pointing to the large instrument locked within the enormous glass case. 

"I'm not sure exactly. Best we wait for the guide, laddy. There's a good boy." But she wasn't looking at the boy when she pat his head affectionately; she was marking exits, her eyes darting everywhere in quick succession until they landed on Ciel. Her head cocked to the side and her brows narrowed in curiosity. 

Ciel had the strangest urge to wave to her, but resisted. He couldn't afford to have her come over with her rugrats and distract him; he had a criminal to detect. 

As he took the last drink of his cold tea, the redhead was hailed by a pretty costumed blonde wearing a toga. She resembled the images he'd seen growing up of Aphrodite, with her large emerald eyes and her kind, friendly face. She bore a handful of flowers native to Greece, and marched up to the group, sandals reverberating loudly against the floor. 

"Are we ready to learn?" She asked them with more enthusiasm than anyone had the right to possess. 

Ciel smiled despite himself. His eyes prickled, even the one behind his patch. She felt like home to him, but not the one he'd just left. Odd. 

"My name is Fionna and I'll be your guide for the next two hours," she told the children, leading them into another room. She was likely giving them the very tour Soma had discussed. Before she was lost to view, Ciel saw the teacher nudge the guide and both of them looked at him over their shoulders chuckling. 

He didn't think there'd been any malice behind it, though he experienced a renewed sense of insecurity regardless. Was there something on his face? Had he sat in something disgusting? Was this flirting? He was so awkward, he couldn't be sure. Not that it mattered, it was blokes he fancied. 

The old man sitting at the door gave a 'ho ho ho' of laughter and refilled his teacup with his thermos. Ciel envied him, the room had grown colder by degrees and he was craving another cup to warm himself up. He rose with an audible groan and stretched his arms and legs and rolled his neck. 

Two minutes wouldn't hurt. He would pop out, get tea from the American and run back if he had to. He could practically see the insides of the room from the Great Court anyhow. 

He walked in reverse to the cafe, bumping into a tall, raven-haired man donning a mid-thigh jacket entering the Living and Dying room. The stranger had braced both his arms to prevent him from falling and Ciel offered an embarrassed, mumbled apology without giving the man a second glance. He was struck with regret immediately, like he should return to his stakeout location rather than getting something as frivolous as tea. He hesitated on the room's threshold, then threw caution to the wind and sprinted towards the cafe. 

The exchange of pounds for tea took under a minute, especially when Ciel hastily told the girl to keep the change. Earl Grey in hand sloshing inside the cup, bag smacking up against his hip with the weight of the book inside, Ciel tore into the room with all of the grace and agility of a baby gazelle learning to walk. 

Time slowed as his first foot met the floor of the Living and Dying room. It almost ceased to exist altogether once the second joined its brother. 

"N-no..." he croaked, skidding to a stop. 


	2. - two -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please enjoy this second installment of Pulse!  
> Thank you so much to those of you who left comments and kudos! I really appreciate the feedback!

He could see it from across the room, even behind three cases and a glass shelf containing precious artifacts that he could care less about. 

"How..." he mouthed, taking baby steps, barely able to stay upright in his state of shock. He slouched, shoulders feeling like he'd taken the weight of the world upon them. 

The closer he got, the bigger the totemic doorway seemed to grow. Had nobody noticed its arrival? The old man still sipped his tea, singing something to himself, completely unbothered. People admired the other relics, talking among themselves, or else taking pictures. 

A lone figure stood, staring at the totem. His shadow crawled the length of the wall alongside the totem, though it shouldn't at that time of day. He had his back turned to Ciel, but he was instantly recognizable as the man he’d bumped into. 

With all the caution of someone approaching a rabid pitbull, Ciel sidled next to the stranger. He wanted to throw his cup of tea at him, blame him for not having stopped him from leaving the room. He knew it was unfair to be enraged with the man, but it was easier than admitting he'd wasted the last six years of his life.

He decided then and there that he hated him; all six feet, two inches of him. Hated the dumb mop of hair that fell perfectly to the side of his face. Hated his ridiculous eyebrow ring and multiple hoops running the shell of his ear. His handsomely carved face could go to Hell too, as far as he was concerned. 

Ugh. And why was he so immaculately dressed? Who came to a museum dressed as if they were about to attend a modeling shoot for D&G? This wanker, that's who!

Upon further inspection of the stranger at his side, Ciel grinned. So he wasn't one hundred percent perfect. The back of his left hand bore a significant amount of scarring. Or maybe it was burned. He wasn't sure, and he didn't care. It was hideously disfigured and that made Ciel feel better. 

Until it didn't. 

He was being uncharacteristically petty. He should be trying to strike up a conversation with the stranger, see if he noticed anything. He opened his mouth twice to ask, and nothing came out. The first time, the words died in his throat, the second time, on his tongue. He withdrew the note in his back pocket and scrunched it in his hand like a talisman that would give him courage, but the stranger broke the silence. 

"It's rather impressive, wouldn't you agree?" 

Of course, he sounded like he originated the language. Fuck him and his dulcet baritone voice. 

"Um..." 

"Indeed. I too was at a loss for words when I first saw it," the stranger added conversationally. 

"When did you first see it?" Ciel asked, seizing the moment to start his interrogation. Defiantly, his chin jutted upwards, visible eye blazing with intent. 

The tall man shrugged out of his jacket and held it over his left arm. It hid his scarring but revealed a well-defined physique with a tatted full sleeve of intricate symbols Ciel couldn't decipher. He almost nullified his previous question, opting instead to ask whether the stranger had mistaken the exhibit and accidentally wandered into this room from the Troy one. He could have been carved from stone. Adonis, but a thousand times more handsome.

"Oh, some time ago."

"Impossible!" Ciel ejaculated. Automatically, the hand clutching the note reached for the totem, as if by putting them together, the mystery of its reappearance would be solved. Behind him, he heard a clearing of throat; the old man had made his way over and his stern face stopped Ciel from closing the two-inch gap between his fingers and the wooden monument. "It... it wasn't here two minutes ago. It hasn't been here for one hundred and twenty years."

"I know."

Ciel waited for the guard to wander off and demanded, "How though?" He stomped his foot out of sheer indignation. "How do you know? How did you see it before now?"

The stranger smiled, and Ciel felt fear bubble up inside his guts. There was something predatory about the perfect alignment of the man's teeth. About the way the smile ignited an amber fire in his eyes. 

"I know," the man explained with an air of teaching someone dimwitted that two plus two equals four, "because it was I that both borrowed..."

"Stole," Ciel interjected vehemently.

"Borrowed," the stranger corrected, "I brought it back, did I not? I said I would."

"You?" 

The man took Ciel's fist in hand and unfurled his fingers as if they were a bird's broken wing. He flattened the note in the boy's hand and traced a sharp claw over the letters so that it pierced the photocopied paper in an exact replica. "Me." 

"But how..." Ciel marvelled, watching the paper smoke cooly, happy the stranger shielded him from the sight of the doorman. The pinkish plumes rose half a foot at most before the parchment turned to dust and scattered. 

"The 'how' is quite complicated for one such as you..."

"I'm not unintelligent," Ciel protested, blinking. His ire brought out his accent.

"Oh, I know you are not such a thing. I simply meant that unless one has a solid understanding of the infernal arts, one is not likely to understand."

"Try me."

The gentleman smiled, inclining his head towards Ciel. “This is no ordinary totem. It is imbued with the ancient magick of several shamans.”

Ciel took a sip of his tea. “Magick?” he snorted incredulously over the lid of his cup. The stranger’s brows came up and there was no trace of humour in his face. “Sorry, go on…” 

The man sighed. “Yes, magick. Although much of what humans call magick is illusory, this was authentic. The doorway you see before you, when properly activated, leads to another dimension; one of stasis. It keeps you well-preserved,” and his voice dropped, dripping the following words carnivorously, “keeps your hunger at bay.”

The Living and Dying room took on a sombre atmosphere. The air thinned, as if it had been siphoned from it. When Ciel tried to inhale, he was sure he was breathing through a mask of rusted steel wool. His lungs grated, and he took his bottom lip between his teeth, considering the stranger at this side. A sound like rolling thunder in the distance, or maybe it was a cavernous stomach growling, rooted him to the spot. His watery gaze fixed on the stranger’s scarred hand; it glowed faintly under the skin in a pulse that mimicked Ciel’s heartbeat. 

_“You… You were about to devour me just now, weren’t you, foul beast!” He heard himself admonish, his English flawless, voice some years younger._

_“Certainly not, Young Master. I was only ninety percent serious.”_

Ciel stared at the stranger like a deer in the headlights; that is, if a paralyzed deer could feel a mixture of disgust, fear and resentment all at once. Abruptly, he covered the riot of emotions up with a quick punch to the gentleman’s arm and a burst of atypical raucous laughter. 

“Right. Sure,” he chuckled. “You uhhh… borrowed this totemic doorway so you could take an inter-dimensional siesta. Did I get that right?”

Thunder crashed so close to the museum, Ciel could have sworn it touched the building itself. He expected an alarm to blare, signalling for them to make their way to the exits. Another boom immediately followed by the pelting of rain overhead and the peppering of small ice pellets against the windows. 

“Indeed. How very adept, Mister…” 

“Phantomhive,” he blurted, holding his hand out, not in the normal way, turned to the side for a handshake, but palm down, as if he himself were nobility. “And you? You’re no doubt an employer here at the museum with all your knowledge? Or perhaps a host of one of those joke shows with hidden cameras?”

Without hesitation, the stranger bowed over Ciel’s hand, brushing his breath against the back of it. A damp chill swept the skin, leaving a thin layer of frost in its wake. “Hardly,” he spoke dangerously low, looking at the young man from under a thick veil of midnight lashes. “My last employer did however give me the name _Sebastian_ before his untimely passing.” 

A frisson of bitter longing tore through Ciel’s skepticism. Sebastian? Sebastian… Somewhere at the back of his nostalgia-soaked brain, small flashes of cognizance began to niggle. Did he know a Sebastian? 

There was Saint Sebastian, but this ominous man looked neither like a saint nor a martyr. Sebastian Stan, the actor, couldn’t hold a flame to this man’s sinister beauty. He’d had a dog named Sebastian at one point, hadn’t he? No, that had been a recurring nightmare while he was growing up; the one featuring a giant, tarry, formless creature -- or was it creatures -- picking him apart and eating him up. 

He recovered his hand from the stranger and held the back of it against his warm tea. Because he wanted a reason to wrench his eyes from the stranger, he glanced to his left where the Pukura hung in all its lavender, lilac, mauve glory. Only the five or so serpents stuck out against the pastelly background. They appeared forebodingly pernicious, maybe a little… diabolical. 

“Sebastian? Like the French inquisitor? The one who wrote all those possession books? Sebastian Michaelis?”

“It was one book, and many treaties,” Sebastian corrected with a patronizing sniff, “but yes, like _that_ Sebastian.” 

“Only not so human?” Ciel nodded towards the totem and the corner of his mouth lifted like a leaf from Tower Bridge’s bascule. “I’m sure even the great Sebastian Michaelis, couldn’t make this disappear without calling on the help of the demons he classified.”

“Quite right, Young ma--” Sebastian cleared his throat, coughing into his hand, “young man. Even without travelling to this other dimension yourself, you can certainly appreciate the kind of inhuman feat transporting such a thing out of, and back into, a museum would require. There is a similar object in the Enlightenment Room, perhaps not as grand in scale, but just as impressive in nature, if you would like me to show you.”

What more did Ciel have to lose? The moment he’d waited some six years for had come and gone like so many unsatisfying one-night stands. It left him cold, disappointed, grasping to make meaning of the simplest insignificant seconds. 

He took another swig of his tea, hoping it conveyed nonchalance. “Sure. Why not? My schedule is more or less wide open now.” He desperately tried to keep the acidity out of his voice, knowing he wasn’t successful. It could be worse, he told himself, his companion could be unattractive. So yeah, the whole _pretending I’m not human_ schtick was a little freaky, but only in a wistful way he couldn’t yet understand. 

“Come,” Sebastian turned, leading the way out of the Living and Dying room and heading east. Two steps into the hallway, Sebastian fluidly pressed the quick-release buckle at Ciel’s chest, freeing his messenger bag. He caught it and carried it by the handle at his side. “You oughtn’t be so hard on yourself, Phantomhive. Sometimes the things at play have unseen advantages.” 

Ciel opened his mouth to protest, but upon feeling his back pocket for his wallet, realized that if Sebastian wanted to make off with his old, canvas bag, the only treasure he’d find was the book that had started this fiasco in the first place. Big whoop. “That makes me feel loads better. Thanks," he said, sardonically impassive. 

With his ridiculously long legs, Sebastian should have been leaps and bounds ahead of him, but instead, he kept pace with Ciel, matching his footfalls. He even went so far as to offer his arm, which Ciel accepted unwittingly. 

The top of his head only came up to Sebastian's shoulder; he should have worn a top hat to make himself appear taller, or a heeled shoe to close the gap between them. If Ciel stood on the tips of his toes, he doubted he could even kiss the handsome man properly. Maybe if he laced his arms around Sebastian's neck and tugged him down a little? Or tangled his fingers in silky black hair and pulled it demandingly towards his own face? Of course, being horizontal would solve all this height difference nonsense… so would being on top...

"Are you blushing?" Sebastian interrupted his reverie.

"What? N-no!" Ciel croaked, refusing to make eye contact. The heat in his face had gone from a candle flame to an all-out wildfire. His neck burned like a beacon, his ears, lodestars, red and detectable from just about anywhere in the northern hemisphere. 

"You would not be the first to view me in a less than noble manner," Sebastian teased, keeping his own head straight forward. The corner of his visible eye crinkled with mirth, but the rest of his face remained stoic. 

They turned left together, passing a gift shop and stopped outside the massive mahogany double doors of the Enlightenment Room.

"That's awfully arrogant of you," Ciel said, taking his arm back from the crook of Sebastian's elbow. "And quite bold of you to assume that I would be at all interested…" 

"Pardon my bluntness, Phantomhive, but if you weren't interested, I daresay you would have walked away by now." Sebastian looked down at him, his merited overconfidence was yet another thing that rubbed Ciel the wrong way. 

“Sure, whatever.” Ciel waved him off, striding over the threshold of the King’s former Library. The shiny oak floors creaked under his light steps, but their pristine appearance could not make up for the absolute cacophony of objects displayed. They lined the walls, indiscriminated by time period, culture or theme. Their locations spanned the globe: a food tablet from Iraq, a bronze bell from China, the Rosetta Stone from Egypt, and a Lothair crystal from _‘probably Germany’_.

And those were just the artifacts. It was hard not to lose oneself in the beauty of classical architecture. They reminded Ciel of home, in more ways than one: the decorative cornice at the ceiling harkened him to an older time, same with the egg and dart ornamentation in yellows and golds along the re-gilded balcony. In fact, he was so busy admiring it that he nearly walked into the large glass encasement set two-thirds into the second portion of the room. 

“It’s a marvel you’ve managed to survive this long without some kind of… personal assistant,” Sebastian reproved, hooking his finger into the nape of Ciel’s jacket collar to stop him from colliding with the glass. 

Ciel stumbled back a few steps, repressing a deep-seated glower as he turned himself about to face Sebastian. “I’ve done just fine, thank you very much. Now, where is this special object? You could have told me you fancied me instead of luring me here under false pretenses.” 

Sebastian leaned in very deliberately, his breath disturbing the small hairs of Ciel’s ear as he whispered into it, “Do I strike you as the kind of _individual_ who would do something as impractical as fancying someone?” 

Ciel’s eye widened and a lump lodged itself in his throat. He didn’t dare swallow it, didn’t dare move a micrometre, acutely aware that Sebastian could likely hear the rush of blood pounding at the base of his neck. 

It was the carriage all over again, outside the Sphere Music Hall, but without being pinned to the backrest. All he needed was for his shirt to be torn, for the sound all around them to die so that all he could hear was Sebastian’s predatory breath rolling off his skin as he sniffed out some perceived injury. 

Ciel’s belly quaked and his legs shook. Bracing himself, he held onto Sebastian’s defined forearms in an attempt to remain upright. The air between them positively crackled, while the silence fed Ciel’s awkward reorientation. This wasn’t the Sphere Music Hall, he reminded himself. He’d never heard of such a place! He was in the British Museum, making a spectacle of himself in front of proper British people. 

“Impractical or not,” he said throatily, a blush creeping anew across his nose and cheeks, “your flirting is atrocious.” 

“If you say so, Phantomhive. Is it your habit to throw yourself at every dignified devil you meet?” 

“Hmph,” Ciel muttered, turning to see what it was he’d almost run into. His good eye ignored his own reflection and cut through the handprints left on the dirtied glass before him. Meeting his awed face was a large brass disc, much bigger than himself, etched with celestial designs displaying tongues and flames pointing to important stars and other constellations. He’d seen them bejeweling rings and amulets, but not of this size. “An [Astrolabe,](https://www.flickr.com/photos/ayarrow/4177156217) ” he whispered so soundlessly that his lips barely moved. 

“Ah, you know what it is,” Sebastian said, with the kind of pride tutors had for their pupils. 

Ciel lifted his gaze, catching Sebastian’s amber eyes reflected to his right. “Of course, the… the witch had so many…” The little emerald witch from his favourite fairytale. The one who saved her village from the werewolves. She was so cunning, so brave. How often had he donned the forest green gown his mother had sewn especially for him, despite his father’s protests, just to pretend he too was valiant?

“Sieglinde…”

“Who’s that?” he asked Sebastian distractedly. Ciel’s hand was pressed against the surface of the glass, pretending to trace the fine ridges that made up the negative space on the astrolabe. It reminded him of a fingerprint; it might have been the dactylogram for the heavens for all he knew. 

“Oh, so you don’t know Sieglinde?” 

Ciel shook his head. “Should I?” It was a germanic name to be sure. He didn’t know many Germans, except maybe for the cute girl with brilliant eyes of malachite, who sat in on his Postmodernism class. But her name was Sullivan. 

“No matter,” Sebastian said, lowering Ciel’s hand from the smudged pane in gentle disapproval. “This is actually the object I wanted to show you. You know its name has its origins from the Greek words _astron_ and _lambanien_?”

“The one who catches the heavenly bodies…” Ciel translated, mouth going dry. He gulped his rising nervousness as Sebastian moved closer, disregarding personal space and practically pressing himself against his back, enveloping Ciel’s smaller form with his height. Sebastian leaned the messenger bag against the encasement and his hands, so much bigger than Ciel’s, rested on both of his shoulders. 

Perhaps it was because of the ancient astrolabe in his presence that Ciel’s head swam with notions of gravitational pull and forces of attraction, but he had the distinct feeling that he himself was falling, careening towards something dangersome. And he couldn’t stop himself, even if he tried. He arched into Sebastian comfortably, familiarly as if he’d done it dozens of times before, and heard the pulse of an echo calling to him in warning. _“Stars that stray from their orbit and become drawn to you will wander in darkness for eternity… like a collapsar.”_

Sebastian spoke, warm breath bathing the glass before him in a light fog. It condensed quickly and tears rolled down the pane like raindrops on an ordinary London day. “Why do you tremble? I haven’t yet told you what it’s for.” 

Sebastian’s reflection reappeared through the nebulous haze on the glass and Ciel examined him, narrowing his eyes. He’d been right, of course; he didn’t look like the kind of bloke who took a fancy to people; not with the peeking fangs pressing down on his full bottom lip, or the darting slits of his titian eyes. Sebastian looked like the kind of person (and that was using the term lightly) who consumed them. 

Ciel straightened his posture, stood an inch taller. “Don’t flatter yourself,” he said petulantly. “So what does this astrolabe do? How is it comparable to the totemic doorway you allegedly _borrowed_?”

Sebastian ignored the jibe with a subtle squeeze to Ciel’s shoulders and pressed on. “When properly wielded, this instrument endows the user with a past or future glimpse of a soul in various alternate realities.”

At Sebastian’s outlandish words, Ciel’s eyebrows rose and disappeared somewhere into his hairline. “Is that so?” 

“Indeed, but with two very important caveats.” 

Ciel rolled his eyes. “Of course. And what would they be?”

“One cannot view their own soul.”

Ciel craned his neck, looking up at Sebastian. “Okay, kind of goes against Socrates’ _‘The unexamined life is not worth living’_ , but go off… What else?” 

“The viewer must _own_ the soul on which it intends to spy.” 

A perverse smile spread across Sebastian’s face; it should have revealed wrinkles along his eyes and forehead, but didn’t. _How uncanny._

Ciel frowned. He rubbed his sweaty palms against his jeans. He wished he had his bag in his hands for something to do with them. “Own?” He chuckled once, flatly. “Own? And you know this because you _own_ an actual soul, do you?” 

“Naturally.” 

“How convenient that you can’t back up your claim, you know, with the astrolabe contained and all.”

Sebastian sidestepped him so that they stood adjacent to one another. He cleared his throat, threw his jacket back on, as if it gave him a more formal allure, and cracked his long fingers dramatically. 

“What are you…” 

“Just watch,” Sebastian instructed, but he just stood there. 

“You’re not even doing any--” Ciel’s statement wasn’t false; the man at his side was in fact not doing anything. That was, until the tiniest of coils emanated from the soles of his shoes. Serpentine, they twisted and caressed the glass like a needy lover, each darkening tendril splitting off at the ends into elongated, clawed digits. 

Ciel blinked. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, the silk of the patch over his right soft against his lid. The tendrils multiplied; two became four, then eight and sixteen. He lost count after that. Some began emerging from Sebastian’s hands, others radiated from his chest. Ciel pursed his lips, looking around for a confirmation that he wasn’t going mad, that someone else could see what he was seeing. 

Sebastian tsked. “If you don’t pay attention, you’ll miss it.” He put his cheek against the glass, listening to something only he himself could hear. It reminded Ciel of thieves trying to listen to a lock. “I’m disappointed, My Lord…”

“My Lord?” Ciel mouthed, hopelessly confused.

“The astrolabe might be contained, but glass is just an ordinary, amorphous solid. Hardly a challenge for a demon such as myself.” At once, the coils crossed the barrier without shattering the transparent shell shielding the artifact from the general public. 

“Demon?” Ciel ran a hand in his hair, where it caught on the bow of his patch. What had he gotten himself into? When he boarded his plane at six this morning, he’d only wanted to catch a glimpse of the totem thief. Maybe a photo. A video. Have a brief exchange - at the very most. 

“Getting there yet?” Sebastian cocked his head, studying Ciel with supercilious amusement. The tendrils surrounded the astrolabe, encircling it with gyroscopic precision, never touching it. “I know it’s difficult. A hundred and twenty years have passed, and slumber that is meant to be eternal renders the soul sluggish.” 

“I’m sorry. I… I think you have the wrong person,” Ciel uttered an octave higher than what was normal for his voice. He wasn’t exactly frightened, but the moment’s viridity weighed on him; like Sebastian had him teetering on the precipice of two realities: one mundane, the other mephistophelian. 

It was too much. He needed time. Needed space. Needed quiet. Needed his damn eye to stop twitching, burning, pulsing. It became wet, filled itself to the brim and spilled over, running under his patch and down his face. He wiped the offensive liquid and it stained the tips of his fingers red. “Shit.” 

In a split-second decision, he opted to leave his bag at Sebastian’s feet to avoid any chance of further interaction. Just as he turned away, two things happened simultaneously: Sebastian caught him by the wrist and an ear-splitting alarm went off. 

“I would know the scent of your soul and its discontent anywhere, in any universe, Young Master,” Sebastian lamented, exasperation colouring his tone. “If not for this medieval instrument, how else might I have extrapolated your future whereabouts? Why else would I have locked myself, and my appetite away all those years, awaiting your return?”


	3. - three -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoy this final, smutty chapter of Pulse.

Around them, museum-goers rushed obsequiously for the exits, mothers with strollers, lovers hand in hand, artists with sketchbooks and charcoal. Some patrons muttered nonsense about bomb threats when the doors were slammed at the opposite end of the room. Guards, blowing their whistles and doing their best to calm the ensuing panic, ushered the last of them out. Everyone seemed blind to the tall gentleman that was both gripping a young Greek’s wrist and an ancient relic simultaneously by immaterial whisps protruding ambiguously from his body. 

“We need to leave,” Ciel said urgently, struggling to free himself. 

Sebastian ignored him. 

“I said we need to go!” Ciel insisted a little louder. 

Sebastian smiled a maddening smile, placing a hand over his chest as if Ciel had spoken the world’s most endearing words. “Is that an order, My Lord?” 

The last door slammed shut behind them, causing Ciel to jump. They heard the deadbolt slide home with a resounding finality, and everything was quiet but for Ciel’s thudding heart and the rain outside. 

“Great! Now we’re stuck in here. And there might be a bomb, you absolute bastard!” 

“There is no bomb,” Sebastian explained, still holding onto Ciel and the astrolabe with his tendrils. His scarred hand left his chest, and slipped under the young man’s eye patch. 

Ciel went rigid; nobody in his entire life, with the exception of doctors, had dared to lay a hand on his freakish eye. But Sebastian’s touch was a remedy; ice on a burn, honey for the inflammation. For all his enigmatic mannerisms, Sebastian was equal parts exciting and soothing.

The silk of Ciel’s patch was pushed back and he wanted nothing more than to look away, to shut his eyes, embarrassed and ashamed as he was of his abnormality. Neither option worked. The whole of his body became transfixed. Immovable. 

And he saw his deformity with his good eye, mirrored in Sebastian’s. Two pupils, one dot larger than the other, black holes swimming in a cerulean celestial dome. They danced one around the other, akin to swirling galaxies: Andromeda and the Milky Way on a collision course. Like tentative lips, they touched and broke apart. Touched and broke apart again, over and over, closer and closer until the pupils became inseparable. One. 

Ciel’s breath shallowed, rasping in and out of his nose in quick succession. Darkness still claimed his right eye and spread through him in thickly shadowed desolation. A feeling of being small, of being caged. Of never having felt more alone. And angry.

_Then, amidst the carnage, amidst his sacrifice, a clawed hand tore through the obscurity, reaching for him as he reached for it._

_“Demon! I will form a contract with you!”_

_“Then let us engrave the contract on each of our bodies. The more conspicuous the location, the more power you wield.”_

_“I don’t care where it is!”_

Ciel’s head shot back as a mighty bellow ripped through his throat, shattering the quiet of the Enlightenment Room. Exploding stars peppered his vision; he could feel them draining the colour from his face, sapping his tenuous hold on reality. He swayed on the spot dizzily. His weak, shaking arms out, ready to hit the ground first when the eventual fainting spell would overtake him. 

His knees finally gave out but he never felt the wooden flooring under them. Instead, he collapsed forward, face against the soft cotton of the demon’s shirt. 

“Young Master, is there something you fear?” Sebastian crooned, scooping Ciel up as easily as if he were thirteen years old all over again. His footsteps echoed as he carried his now adult charge to a display case and sat him upon it. He parted Ciel’s legs and stood between them, thumbing the young man’s lips in obvious amusement. “You’re outside of the cage now, my lord. Come, call my name.” 

“S-Se...bastian...” Ciel croaked, trying to blink his vision back into focus. Through unshed tears, the devil swam in front of him; there were two of them, then one, and when Sebastian cupped his face with his large hands, Ciel saw him more clearly than he’d ever seen anything in his twenty-one years. 

“Once more, Young Master.” 

There were so many other things in the King’s former Library worth paying attention to. Priceless heirlooms and cultural keystones practically littered the place, and up until some hours ago, Ciel would have sold his soul to appreciate them with both eyes. But now, all he could zero in on, all he _wanted_ to zero in on, were the features that made up that well-known face. 

“Sebastian…” He spoke breathless, lips brushing against the namesake’s fingers.

Time had not tarnished the demon’s beguiling good looks. He was every bit alluring at present as he had been over a century ago. Perhaps more so. Sebastian still retained the sophistication and elegance of a Victorian gentleman, but with all the trappings of modern urbanity. 

Ciel was suddenly very conscious of an old hunger reawakening. A hunger which had taken all his decorum, all his decency to tame. Viciously, it licked at his insides with its sandpaper flame, trying once more to claw its way out. He held firm to the glass case beneath him with white knuckles, his mouth more desiccated than a Saharan mid-afternoon.

Then, he was betrayed. 

His new vessel responded much too promptly to being touched: to tendrils roughly kneading his thighs and tugging restlessly at his jacket. And why shouldn’t it?! He had no betrothed. The nobility of his family name did not rest on his skinny, thirteen-year-old shoulders. He was no longer the shy, virginal earl he’d once been. 

And Sebastian… Sebastian had fashioned himself to suit all of Ciel’s… _needs_. He always had. 

A fist-like coil tangled itself at the back of Ciel’s head, pulling his hair with enough force that it exposed the young man’s throat. Sebastian’s sharp-fanged mouth attacked it forthwith, scraping back and forth over the delicate skin. He mauled Ciel with languid swipes of his devils’ tongue, tasting the swell of his Adam’s apple, lips bruising in their intensity to suck marks onto his tempting prey. 

“Nnngh... Im-impatient demon,” Ciel stuttered, legs automatically wrapping around Sebastian’s waist and pulling him so close they were flush, hard one against the other. 

“Your soul already belongs to me, but my claim on this frail human body is long overdue, wouldn’t you agree?” the demon growled, breathing hot at the notch below Ciel’s studded ear. He bit the young man’s neck and lapped the weeping pearls greedily. 

Ciel hissed. 

The demon’s tendrils plucked at his clothes with eager claws and pincers, tearing through the fabric. “Is it your intention to torment your lowly servant once more? To feign your innocence? To be willfully ignorant to your demon’s hunger?” 

Ciel scoffed. “No one could turn a blind eye to _your_ hunger.” His toes curled in his shoes, remembering. “It kept me up at night. I could hear it wherever you were in the manor. The rumbling gnarl of your stomach. The reverberating, hollow ache of your emptiness. It was always in my head.” 

“And so you pleasured yourself?” Ciel’s jacket lay in tatters on the museum floor. “Moaned for me. Wept pitifully for me. Made me listen. Smell. Taste the longing of your soul in the air?” The buttons of Ciel’s shirt popped off one at a time. “Soiled your gown and sheets nightly to _my_ hunger?” Ciel’s shirt fell off his shoulders and heaving chest, sliding down his arms. “Then asked to be bathed like a good little sadist?”

A smirk toiled at the corner of Ciel’s mouth when he pulled away from Sebastian’s. “And ever the dutiful butler, you complied.” 

The lightning that lit up the sky outside caught Ciel’s eye through the window casting a glow of the violet contract upon the devil’s face. Instinctively, the young man took up the demon’s hand. It was still disfigured but began searing when he rolled his thumb over the pentagram’s scarred ridges. Keeping his eyes on the devil’s crimson ones, he pressed his lips to it. 

Sebastian’s brow raised imperiously. “Beware the beast you provoke, Young Master.” 

“I want him properly roused, Sebastian, or don’t waste my time,” Ciel countered. With a lazy drag of his tongue from the demon’s wrist to knuckle, the seal broke open, bleeding ooze of prismatic hematite. Ciel stared challengingly ahead, eyes boring into his butler’s like daggers. He bathed his full lips with the taste of it and licked them with the faintest of moans. 

Sebastian’s cool facade cracked. Surprise and delight seeped through the carefully constructed human vessel in a manner only befitting a demon. A deep growling _Mmmmm_ caused the shelves around them to rattle throwing artifacts against their glass cases, ready to spill out should they be opened.

“Is that all I get?” Ciel asked. “You taste like danger and downfall, and all you give me in return is an _Mmmmm_?” 

Roughly, Ciel was pushed back onto the glass case. His feet were spread wide, supported like stirrups by two particularly strong tendrils. The words the devil spoke now were orders, short and clipped. 

“Move.” Ciel withdrew his hand from his own crotch, where he’d been unconsciously shielding his erection, a habit that hadn’t died since last time. Sebastian pressed the heel of his hand into his master’s bulge, assessing it properly, tracing its outline, teasing him when he fully grabbed it and gave it a harsh squeeze. 

Ciel’s nails dug into his own palms. “Hah… Sebas-” 

He sucked in his stomach as Sebastian tunnelled his large hand into his jeans and underwear. He already felt wet with anticipation, the gummy head of his cock pulsing against the demon’s fingers as he stroked it. He went further down, mapping the dorsal vein of his cock, smoothing the coarse pubic hair, then cupped his balls tightly. 

He was about to command Sebastian to just whip it out when the back of the butler’s hand pushed through the fly and broke it irreparably. 

“Hips,” the demon said curtly, and Ciel obliged, lifting his hips off the surface. His jeans were removed, as his hard cock rebounded, slapping the bottom of his stomach with an embarrassing squelch. 

He looked away, covering his eyes with his arm. This kind of exposure was different from when Sebastian had bathed him. Of course, the older he became, the more often he fantasized about his butler joining him, suit soaked, water sloshing over the rim of the tub. Or else, naked, slipping skin against skin atop his servant’s lap, bubbles bursting around them. The thought had gotten him quite aroused then, Sebastian had even made comments, jokes about it to humiliate him. 

Just then, Sebastian snorted as if he’d read his mind. 

“Wonderful timing as always, you cur.”

Ciel’s face grew hotter. He was ready to put his jeans on again, broken as they were, and exit the library when a heat engulfed his aching cock like satin fire. Shocked, he rose on his elbows and watched as Sebastian’s head slid up and down his shaft. The butler’s long fringe fell into his face so that the blazing, crimson look he gave his master was at times obscured. 

Tentatively, and with trembling fingers, Ciel pushed Sebastian’s hair back. He wanted to watch, wanted to see how deeply the demon swallowed him. The devil’s locks twined around the young man’s fingers like living silk, goading him to pull and yank. And he did, grabbing him tersely and pushing his head down as far as it would go. 

It went all the way, naturally, and a wild snarl split from somewhere in Sebastian. He pleasured Ciel with long, slow strokes, alternating between sucking and licking the length of his cock. Ciel’s body jerked involuntarily, thrusting into Sebastian’s heat in the most unchivalrous way. He hardened and pulsed, making pre-cum spill from the slit. Ciel fought for control, prayed to a god he didn’t believe in for control. He wanted this to last, wanted Sebastian’s touch, the way his eyes burned, the sight of his flesh held intimately in the devil’s mouth to be seared into his memory. 

He shuddered, pleasure rippling through him, as Sebastian came up for a breath he did not need. 

“Your prick is still lovely, though I expected nothing less.” 

The admiration assuaged Ciel's former insecurities, especially when hearing the rough need in Sebastian’s voice. He might have denied it centuries ago, but the butler thrived on being recognized for his good work. Despite trying his best to appear modest, accepting it with a downcast look, a bow of his head, and a hand on his _heart_ , Sebastian was what Ciel would call today, _a praise slut_. 

“You’re quite good at this aren’t you?” Ciel sighed, as Sebastian spat upon his own hand and began fisting his master’s length. “Mmn… Had… had I known, I would have requested this daily.” 

“Your memory still fails you, My Lord,” Sebastian teased, taking the leaking head back into his mouth. He craved the young man, enjoyed the way his swelling length pushed in and out, thickened and convulsed, touching the back of his throat with every uneven thrust. 

“Fuck… I would remember this…” 

The devil shook his head, _no_. “Not if you asked to forget,” he crooned wickedly. “Poor little lamb, agonized by guilt,” he continued, this time with the help of his tendrils; one of which sought the astrolabe again, and a handful of others pinning the young man down, hands over his head, legs spread wide.

A thickened, wet coil pushed against Ciel’s entrance, nudging at it impatiently. It squeezed into him, taking the shape of a distinctively large glans, gliding into him little by little. His back arched off the glass and he grit his teeth something awful, waiting for the bulbous head to pass. Sweat beaded his hairline where another coil wrapped itself gently around his head. 

Sebastian shrugged out of his jacket as if nothing of consequence were happening and his tendrils tore off his shirt. His black denim hung dangerously low on his hips. He was all muscle and hard body, with a shimmer of something otherworldly upon his flesh. Was it anticipation? Famine? It glistened his skin rapturously from chest to abdomen and lower when he unbuttoned his trousers. 

Ciel caught sight of it, large, frantic in its throbbing, heavy, and inhumanly full. He moaned obligingly, wanting it, craving it. “Sebastian, please,” he whined, as images flitted in front of his eyes. 

_Sebastian bending him over his desk in the study. “Patience my lord, you’re so small, I could break you.”_

_Himself squirming. “No. Not by our contract. This is an order. Quickly now, before she wakes...”_

The tendril at his head sent another shocking memory, courtesy of the astrolabe.

 _In a snowstorm, shivering in the[carriage](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18722698). “Before we get to the manor, Sebastian.”_

And another. 

_It had been weeks, and with work from the Queen continuous in its delivery, he needed a break. “Come with me for a walk, Sebastian.”_

_“Will we need a blanket, My Lord?” the demon asked knowingly._

_“No, not if you can control yourself, you beast.” But it hadn’t been Sebastian’s fault that time. It was he himself who’d insisted on the forest’s floor, noble attire muddied, knees in muck as he held fast to Sebastian's hands while grinding atop him._

Another. 

_A palatial residence, a ball in undercover drag, inside of a small closet stuffed with the jackets of aristocratic guests. Sebastian holding him up against fur, loosening his corset so he could breathe as the devil impaled him repeatedly._

The memories didn’t let up.

_The[bathtub](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17555045) on a stormy night, after the devil lost a hand of cards for the first time._

And. 

_In a stately ship’s cabin, the floor rocking beneath them, gasping for air, face crammed against his pillow. Being fucked restlessly, newly combed hair a mess. All to distract from the tedium of a banal family vacation._

Finally. 

_“Blow out your candles Ciel,” Elizabeth had said, “and make a wish.” He had only one wish. And he got it, in front of his guests, on the[table](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18983431) ._

They were by no means a complete set. He understood that. In the years he’d lived as a noble, he’d found pleasure, distraction, solace and despair in the arms of corruption, nearly as often as he himself committed sin. 

Ciel cupped the demon’s face and glared fiercely at him. “I thought that by our contract you couldn’t lie to me?” 

Both tendrils and hands paused in the devil’s ministrations. He’d helped himself to his master’s body, cleansing it in unholy attention. “I haven’t.” Abruptly, Sebastian gathered Ciel in his arms, leaving their clothes discarded. “Nor will I ever.” 

“But you said you erased _those_ memories...” Ciel heard a large stone being kicked over and falling to the wooden floor. It splintered under the weight of what he knew to be the [Rosetta Stone](https://blog.britishmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/xRosetta-Stone-in-situ.jpg.pagespeed.ic.CHPHBLPNs9.webp). The red velvet rope lay trapped underneath, but from where Ciel was sat upon it, he could properly make out the Egyptian hieroglyphs and ancient Greek scriptures. He felt an ounce more shame for the desecration of an ancient stone than for whatever sin he’d committed in his past. “I feel no remorse for what we did.” 

This admission spurred the demon’s arousal. He turned Ciel over onto his belly, somewhat crudely, and unapologetically thumbed the small gape of his entrance. It was not even close to what was required, but it would have to do. The earl had never shied away from pain before. “Is it possible for you to have become even more callous in your current incarnation, My Lord?” 

Ciel felt Sebastian’s breath wash over his shoulders and the drip of his butler’s precum at the small of his back. It ran either way down his waist and poured over the stone in a viscid puddle. He squirmed under Sebastian in anticipation, trapped member straining against the rock and his belly.

“Demon, is it possible that you’ve grown soft in your slumber? Will you savage me, or not?” 

“Yes, My Lord,” Sebastian answered contently for the millionth time, voice threaded with a seductive smile. His gaze descended from the mop of Ciel’s slate hair, to the protrusions of his spinal column, all the way down to his pert rear. He spread him apart one-handed and rubbed the lubricate oozing from his demonic length up and down his own shaft. 

Pressing the head to Ciel’s pucker, he pushed in, relishing the curling of the young man’s hands over the rock as he tried to temper the pain. How he’d missed seeing him writhe this way. “Breathe, Young Master.” 

Ciel could not. The air was stuck in his lungs and his face was flat on the cool stone. Sebastian’s voice seemed far away, like an echo falling through space. 

“S-seb…” he called the demon, in need of affirmation. The more Sebastian filled him, the more the tempo of his pounding heart turned frantic in his ears. 

“I’m here... my darling,” Sebastian crooned mockingly, prowling toward his ear as he sank deeper. One hand thread itself through the young man’s fingers, while the other held Ciel’s hip steady. “Almost,” he grunted, “almost…” Becoming one with his master was like tasting the heavens, or a salaciously delectable part of Hell. 

Ciel stretched around Sebastian’s girth, and when the demon gave the smallest of thrusts to sheath himself completely, he gasped out loud, finally submitting to the relentless pressure. 

Sebastian’s cock swelled as he pulled back and drove in slowly again, trying to recall the rhythm that his master liked best. Ciel’s back curved gracefully, silently begging him to continue. The devil flexed his hips, internally reeling at how snug everything felt, how familiarly his cock stuffed itself into him, clinging to the sweet lock of his body. He craved more, wanting to make up for the one hundred and twenty years that they’d so cruelly been denied. 

“Have there been many?” Sebastian’s tone bit possessively before he drew his length out of Ciel and plunged it back to the hilt. 

Air popped out of Ciel’s throat at being impaled so ruthlessly. Needy moans filled the hall, his rhythmic _ah, ah, ah, ahs…_ repeatedly reverberated and filling his mouth, rendering him otherwise mute on the matter. “Are… are you jealous?” he finally asked peering doefully over his shoulder. 

Sebastian smacked into Ciel’s welcoming, taut body in retaliation. His hand spoke the words he refused to admit to even himself. They gripped the young man tight, pulled him to his knees and tormented his flesh with the raking of his claws. 

Demons were not meant to form attachments. They were not meant to emote as mere humans did. He knew this. All demons knew this. It was cardinal among them. 

But who better than he to disgrace a fundamental rule, upon which all others hinge? Was he not a deviant amongst deviants? An aberrant, an anomaly even in the company of the most infernal of motley crews? 

Sebastian’s hesitation intensified the heat building in Ciel’s stomach. “That was a question, Sebastian,” he incited, face twisted in pleasured agony, letting the drag of the devil’s cock stroke his inner walls. He hung on Sebastian, one arm back around his neck, the other balling a fist in his hair. 

Ciel’s body arched like a drawn bow in the devil’s capable hands, his body otherwise supported by some two dozen tendrils. For his part, Sebastian held his throat, thumbing the pulsing blood vessels while he fucked into him, distorting Ciel’s breathing, moans and whines. Two fingers from his free hand roughly inserted themselves into Ciel’s mouth, sliding along his tongue. The former earl gnawed them and sucked them to the knuckle like a filthy, starved harlot. 

“Smart little mouth,” Sebastian retorted bitterly, the words bathing the young man’s ear in his envy; he was unable to lie, but unwilling to tell the truth. “You’re not daft,” he bucked hard, pistoning in and out of Ciel, “would you like everyone manhandling your food?” 

Ciel choked on Sebastian’s fingers when he laughed. He gagged and spit them out. “Ha! You’re… you’re still on that, are you? If I were only food, you would have ended this over a century ago.” 

Sebastian’s hold on Ciel slackened. It was just like the little lord to speak so brashly, so plainly. He lowered Ciel, slipping out of him one moment, only to pick him up once more so that he could look at him. 

“Nngh,” Ciel groaned in protest. Empty. Aching. His petulance was paid off with a quick upthrust, and he wrapped his legs over Sebastian’s hips to steady himself. His nails bit into the demon’s shoulders and his perspiration-glazed face rippled with tension. “Am I… am I wrong?” 

Sebastian kissed him, first on the forehead like a lover, next on the cheek as a companion, then finally hard on the mouth as a demon to quiet his master, to relive the flavour of his soul. His lips tasted of sweat, his breath like the sweet elixir of rebirth, and his soul, ah, his soul was there, nuzzled safely at his core, a star, against all odds, resisting collapse. 

A certain, inhuman fondness scorched Sebastian’s sensibilities as he let himself be snagged by the fiery whip of pure greed. 

The demon could hear them outside, patrons walking about again; but Ciel’s cock rubbing along the ridges of his hard stomach and the heat from the incessant friction turned matters urgent. He had more than a shag on his mind, but would not be otherwise distracted with Ciel so tightly clenched around his length. 

His eyes locked onto his masters’, their blue imprisoned, but not helpless. They were blazing, but warm. Commanding and submissive all at once. His small hands were in Sebastian’s hair, twisting it, tangling it, pulling it. He _needed_ as much as the demon. 

Sebastian shifted his weight and drove into him again, slamming him rigidly in the cradle of his arms against the floor-to-ceiling glass shelves. They shattered behind him, shards raining onto the floor, their tinkling sound a sharp contrast to the squelching, moaning, growling passionate noises. 

Ciel began to roll his hips forcefully, thrashing upon Sebastian’s thrusts in deep grinding movements that glanced his prostate. His half-assed, noble composure went straight to hell, unleashing an undignified whine. He clutched Sebastian tighter, ground his heels more fervently into Sebastian’s back. Gasped his name with every brush of his sensitive nub of nerves.

The demon gave him no time to recover or catch his breath. He licked the sweat from Ciel’s skin, nipped at his ear, worked hard and fast through the quakes of his master’s body.

“Nn… yes! Please… I want to… I want to...” Ciel begged in earnest, hips jerking erratically. His knees shook, bracketing Sebastian’s waist, eyes rolled back and mouth quivering agape. The pleasure wracked his body; he felt like he was being taken apart piecemeal and unhinged. He missed this. Forgot what it was like to have someone with such shameless, intimate knowledge of his body. 

“Then say it,” Sebastian hummed at his throat, gluttonous pride replacing hunger. 

“Say w-what?!”

“I think you know…” Sebastian slowed, grinning devilishly. Some of his tendrils squeezed their way into Ciel, pumping in and out of him, sopping wet, dripping from his long, slender legs.

“I don’t…” but he knew, or at least he did when a thickened coil twined itself just below the head of his cock to delay his bliss and tourniquet his satiation. 

Sebastian’s brow raised, eyes glowing in a shade of deepest carnality. He kept milking his own length with Ciel’s much-abused hole. Up and down, up and down. Swelling and surging in and out of him until he felt his own peak cresting.

“Fine! Fine! You’re...” Ciel panted, and the pressure relinquished around his prick. A few sharp jabs more to his prostate was all it took before he was screaming, wildly writhing in Sebastian’s arms. “You’re... still the… the best.” His orgasm burned down his spine and roared over him in unapologetic brutality, soiling both of their bellies as spurt after spurt of Ciel’s release shot out, hot and sticky. 

Ego satisfied, he drove into Ciel harder, clutching the boneless boy as their skin slapped together. He kissed his master’s lips blue, releasing a fraction of the tether holding tight to his hunger and spread Ciel apart to fill him and bulge his belly. He came in torrents, heeded the young man’s whimpers, smelled their arousal pooling slickly at their feet, savoured the small convulsions rippling up and down his cock from within Ciel’s body.

Absolute satiation left Ciel’s mind blank. To be sure, there were words swimming in his head, but he couldn’t manage to string a sentence together. Regardless, he didn’t even know what he wanted to say. Thank you? It’s about time? Now what? 

He was barely conscious of Sebastian sitting him on a bench to dress him. Blinked the memory of the demon’s hands caressing his legs before clipping the garter in place just below his knee. His hands trembled in real-time, resting on Sebastian’s shoulders when the butler tied his shoe for him. “Is this real?” 

The doors flung open in answer; no evidence remained of their tryst: no shattered glass, no crumbling relics, or overturned stone. The disaster they’d made of the Enlightenment Room could have been a dream. 

“Was it real?” Ciel repeated, subtly rephrasing his question in a low voice, as to not be overheard. 

Sebastian laced Ciel’s eyepatch behind his head, untucking the hair so that it lay more comfortably. He helped him to his feet, hitched his bag over his shoulder, and offered Ciel his elbow. 

“Indeed, Young Master. But it is sometimes terrifying to reconcile the past with the present. To ignore the fantastic in the face of reality.”

“Not _that_ terrifying,” Ciel quipped, walking somewhat gingerly at Sebastian’s side. The demon shook out his own sleeve and produced an intricate walking stick of the finest oak and pewter for the young man. 

“I wonder if your mind would change…”

“Speak plainly,” Ciel ordered, leaving the opulent room, heading towards the exit. A glacial wind that had not been there earlier blew into the entrance and shuddered his frame.

“I simply meant if you were at another’s mercy.”

“I’m at no one’s mercy!” Ciel chortled. “There aren’t people looking to harm me. I’ve no vengeance to seek.”

Sebastian paused outside. Gloomy clouds sailed past the little sun shining over London and darkened the atmosphere profoundly. “Certainly, but you have an unfulfilled obligation to give the devil his due, My Lord.” Sebastian licked his lips, entitlement as palpable as the horror-stricken features on his master’s face. 

Ciel’s shock was writ large in his eye. Unconsciously, he shielded his body and took a step back. “I thought…” he swallowed, his spine going stiff as betrayal took hold. “I thought I wasn’t only…”

“A meal?” Sebastian simpered. “Yes, of course, I’m fond of you and our little game, which is why I have a proposal for you, a choice I’ve offered no other: surrender your soul now, or postpone the inevitable by allowing me to come under your employ once again. Either way, Earl of Phantomhive, you are at my mercy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you can see, this is a very open-ended conclusion.  
> If you'd like more, lemme know in the comments! <3  
> Any feedback, kudos or love would be greatly appreciated!

**Author's Note:**

> A little comment and kudos goes a looooong way my friends <3 slam that button for me!


End file.
